Ricerc@Sapienza

Chestnut seeds are used for fresh consumption and for the industrial preparation of derivatives, such as chestnut flour. During industrial processing, large amounts of by-products are generally produced, such as leaves, flowers, shells and burs. In the present study, chestnut shells were extracted by boiling water in order to obtain polyphenol-rich extracts. Moreover, for the removal or non-phenolic compounds, a separation by preparative reverse phase chromatography in ten fractions was carried out.

Polyphenols are a broad class of plant secondary metabolites which carry out several biological functions for plant growth and protection and are of great interest as nutraceuticals for their antioxidant properties. However, due to their structural variability and complexity, the mass-spectrometric analysis of polyphenol content in plant matrices is still an issue. In this work, a novel approach for the identification of several classes of polyphenol derivatives based on ultra-high performance liquid chromatography coupled to high-resolution mass spectrometry was developed.

Phytocannabinoids are a broad class of compounds uniquely synthesized by the various strains of Cannabis sativa. Up to date, most investigation on phytocannabinoids have been addressed to the most abundant species, Δ9-tetrahydrocannabinol and cannabidiol, for their well-known wide range of pharmaceutical activities. However, in the recent years a large number of minor constituents have been reported, whose role in cannabis pharmacological effects is of current scientific interest.